The Punter / Steven Rawlings / 31 October 2009 /

Weather delays all over the place again this week, and its turned into a quiet weekend for Steve

It was meant to be a busy week but it's been pretty quiet so far. The US Fall Series event, the Viking Classic, hasn't even started yet! And it's not all together certain that it ever will.

According to Slugger White, the PGA TOUR's vice president of rules and competitions, the Madison, Mississippi area has had 24-25 inches of rain in the last 30 days, so the course is completely saturated. More rain fell overnight and they won't get started until tomorrow now. The forecast suggests that things will improve now and as next week's a blank week in the States the event will run into Tuesday, so its fingers crossed and wait and see.

The Volvo World Match Play has had no such problems; there hasn't been a cloud in the sky all week. As I'd suspected, there were shocks aplenty from the get-go and fortunately for me my two picks, Simon Dyson and Jeev Milkha Singh caused two of them on day one.

Dyson was lucky enough to run into a lacklustre Henrik Stenson and beat him comfortably by three holes, whilst Lee Westwood was atrocious against Singh, and lost to my man by a whopping six holes.

At the close of Thursday's play I had one further bet, backing Robert Allenby at [11.0]. He'd played twice, having beaten Kaymer and drawn against Sergio Garcia, and needed to beat Oliver Wilson to progress. Mercifully, he did, as my two pre-event picks were bitterly disappointing.

Both looked likely to progress if they could have won one of their remaining two matches but neither could. Dyson had a putt to go two up on Rory McIlroy with four to play, which he left agonisingly short, and after missing that he completely lost the plot. McIlroy ended up beating him by two holes and Angel Cabrera absolutely battered him, by seven holes!

Singh was comfortably beat by Camilo Villegas, before narrowly losing to Ross Fisher. There had been a brief moment yesterday morning when I thought they could have both progressed and I'd have definitely had one pick in the final, but it wasn't to be, far from it in the end.

Allenby is currently playing Anthony Kim, and is all square at halfway, as are Ross Fisher and Angel Cabrera in the other semi-final. I'll just let things play out now, and accept what I get - a small win or a small loss.

At the Singapore Open there have been weather delays every day so far and round three still has plenty left in it. My man, Phil Mickelson, looks to be out of it now as he's six shots off the lead, which is very frustrating as he looked like he was on a real charge this morning, but he's since dropped three shots on the back nine so far and just doesn't seem at home on the greens.

I got up at around four this morning, just as the second round was closing and backed Ian Poulter at an average of [2.48], which looked more than fair given he led by five!

I went back to bed and when I got up he was trading at less than [2.0] and hadn't hit a ball, so it was a good bet. I very nearly layed some back at odds on to get my Mickelson stake back but didn't. When he whacked his second shot into the water on the par five 4th, I wished I had, instead I scrambled out of it at an average of [2.74].

Play will resume again in the early hours and it looks very open now. With no US golf today, and no trading to do in the Match Play, I'm going to have an easy day today and go out tonight now the chance has arisen. I may get up early and trade the rest of round three, and round four in Singapore, if indeed there is a round four! But then again I may not. What I thought would be a hectic weekend has turned into a very quiet one and I'm not complaining.

I'll post a review on Monday, who knows where they'll be up to in the States!

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